Pretty Face
by dernier cri
Summary: Maybe Cam thinks that Nixie's more than just another pretty face. Maybe he hopes that one day, she'll forgive him for his betrayal. Cam/Nixie. Multi-Chapter.
1. The Saviour

People often wondered about the nieces of Principal Santos, though nobody wondered more than the boy who knew their secret and betrayed them. He often saw them together walking along the sandy shores, always careful never to get too close to the waves that so nearly brushed against their bare feet. Cam enjoyed watching them from afar, though he was disappointed that they never chose to be at the beach that they knew he was lifeguarding. The job was no longer enjoyable now that Zac was no longer his partner in crime.

Cam sat alone at the Ocean Café, his eyes constantly watching the waves almost as if he thought he was going to catch a glimpse of her tail as she dove into the cold water. He frequented the café knowing that Sirena did gigs there with David, though all three mermaids tended to avoid him, along with Evie and Zac.

"Can I get you anything today, Cam?" said a soft, feminine voice belonging to Carly, the waitress and basically the only person that still sometimes talked to him. Her brows were arched in curiosity – she often wondered why he came to the Ocean Café by himself and why he was no longer friends with the others – patiently waiting for him to order.

"Yeah, can I just have an order of prawns, Carly?" Cam replied, glancing away from the ocean for the first time that night.

"Sure thing, Cam," Carly replied, not looking back at him as she scribbled down his order in her little notebook and walked away. Had Cam turned his attention back to the ocean, he would have missed seeing Sirena brushing past his table and into the café just after David. Their show was going to be starting soon, he knew, but he didn't dare go inside. That would mean that he would have to be in the same room as Zac, and he had done enough of that at school because they had most of their classes together. Cam wasn't exactly ready to apologize yet, though he had come to terms with the fact that what he had done was wrong.

The soft tunes from David's guitar and Sirena's soft singing could be heard coming through the doors of the café, but Cam paid them little mind. His body froze, though it was by no magical reason. Lyla and Nixie just walked into the café and blatantly ignored him, but that was only to be expected.

"Here are you, Cam," Carly said suddenly. He hadn't even noticed that she had returned and placed the food before him on the table. "Enjoy."

Cam barely noticed her absence, however, because there was a strange feeling of emptiness in his chest whenever he saw Nixie around. She had a rather pretty face.

* * *

"Did you see Cam sitting out there by himself?" Lyla asked Nixie curiously, glancing back through the closed glass door of the Ocean Café as if she thought he was up to something, though she had perfectly good reason not to trust him anymore.

"No, I didn't even notice him," Nixie lied, following Lyla's gaze through the glass door. "Serves him right though, to be sitting out there by himself like that."

Lyla seemed to have believed Nixie's lie and turned her attention to Sirena's performance, just after allowing Carly to take their order of a couple of smoothies. Truth be told, Nixie had indeed noticed Cam sitting at a table on the deck outside. She saw him before she even saw the tables, the café, or even the ocean behind him. Cam was just the kind of person that stood out against everything else. At least, that's how it was for her. It might have seemed crazy, but for a split moment in her life, she thought that she actually meant something to Cam. Nixie thought that she was just a little more than just his partner in taking out Zac, though it seemed like she had never really mattered in his life; she felt like she was just a pawn in the game that he was playing, and she didn't like that at all.

"Here are your smoothies," Carly said as she placed the drinks on the table between Nixie and Lyla before leaving to take care of other tables. Carly didn't stay around to chat with them. She never really did.

"Thanks," Nixie said to her retreating back. She threw another glace out the window to the lonely boy sitting at a table with far too much food for one person. Had he meant to take it back to his family? Or was he expecting someone else to come and join him? Not that Nixie really cared, actually. Nixie was hurt by his betrayal, but it was a sad sight to see him out on the deck alone. His gray eyes flickered towards where she was sitting and captured hers, but Cam didn't give her that easy going smile he often threw on. There was something different about the way he looked, but Nixie couldn't quite put her finger on it. Nixie couldn't help but continue to look into his eyes – she was often told that eyes were the gateway to one's soul – and wonder why they seemed to be so different from what they used to be.

"Nixie," she heard Lyla calling.

Nixie practically had to tear her eyes away.

* * *

Cam had been on the outside looking in once before when his best friend turned into a mermaid and the other three girls discovered his secret, but this was something else entirely. For one, he was literally on the outside of the Ocean Café and looking through the glass doors. But for another thing, he wasn't used to feeling so alienated. Cam was used to being the life of the party.

He knew that he had hurt Nixie with his betrayal and expected to be ignored for the rest of his natural life, but part of him couldn't help but hope that she wouldn't hate him forever. Cam was looking everywhere but through the glass door that separated them, but he couldn't help but look when he felt like someone else was staring at him through those doors, and he was right to do so because she was staring right at him with those big, blue eyes of hers. The half-smile that he often left on his face faded quickly, though he hoped that she wouldn't notice that. Cam felt surprised, but it wasn't a bad thing. Perhaps he was feeling a little bit hopeful, but he couldn't get ahead of himself. He maintained eye contact with her.

There was an odd feeling in his chest that he simply couldn't describe. The emotion felt fluttering and fleeting and faded only after a couple minutes after she tore her eyes away from him. It was probably the most interaction he had with her since his betrayal on Mako Island. There was another odd sensation that resembled something like loss when he felt her eyes falling off of him. It was strange, to say the least.

Cam began to eat his food in peace thinking about how he would have to bring some home to his folks so that the food wouldn't go to waste. He forgot how big the portions were at the café. He usually used to just give all his extra food to Zac, but that was no longer an option seeing as they were no longer friends.

After eating as much as he possibly could, he decided that he would need to go a grab a box from inside. Cam caught himself hoping that he would see Nixie from much closer, though he pushed that thought out of his mind as soon as it entered. He trudged through the glass door hoping not to cause a scene. He knew that Lyla had been more than just a little bit jumpy when he came anywhere near, but Cam spotted her head of blond hair making its way into the ladies' room just as he passed the threshold of the café. It took everything in him to not look at Nixie, but he managed to make it to the counter and waited for Carly to return so that he could ask for a box to take him his leftovers.

What occurred next happened so quickly Cam would have missed it had he not been trying so hard to ignore Nixie. Cam watched as Carly tripped over another customer's outstretched food and fall to the ground, her tray of drinks being hurled across the room. Had he not known what would have happened next, he would have probably laughed at the whole situation, but he saw the glass of water splashing onto the floor by Nixie's feet, and then another on her table. Panic seized Nixie, that much was obvious.

Cam looked around and saw that Sirena was preoccupied making sure that David hadn't been hurt by a glass that flew right past his head and remembered that Lyla was in the bathroom. Nixie got up quickly but didn't look like she knew where she could run without it being too obvious, and the bathroom was too small and there was sure to be plenty of non-mermaids in there at this time. Nixie looked frozen with fear. Without thinking, Cam rushed over and seized her wrist and dragged her through the door of the café quickly. Nixie obliged without objection.

"Cam! I'm going to –" Nixie started with a shout before he felt her transforming in his grasp. Cam quickly turned and made sure that nobody else was on the deck.

"It's okay, I've got you," Cam stated, catching her before she fell. His gaze lingered on her a moment longer than he intended before her confused look allowed him to catch on to their current situation. "I'll help carry you to the water."

"No!" Nixie shouted in protest. She had never really been one to accept help from others, especially ones that she didn't trust. "I can do it myself. You…you should go back inside."

Cam let out an amused snort as he began dragging her to the edge of the dock. "What are you going to do? Roll yourself over the edge?"

"I very well could!" Nixie replied haughtily, as if that had been her plan all along.

"I just saved you," Cam said to her adamantly, casting her a smile, "I'm not going to leave you."

The two stared at each other for a moment. Nixie knew that he wasn't going to leave her and Cam knew that she was going to be stubborn, but realize that she needed his help.

"Trust me." The words were out of his mouth before he could stop himself. Cam watched as her lips twisted into a disapproving frown and his easy going smile faltered.

"We both know what happened last time," she stated simply. Need there be a further explanation?

Cam sighed heavily, but continued to drag her to the edge of the wooden deck until they reached the metal dock where she could safely get into the water, but her body was facing away from him.

"There." Cam let go of her waist – he had been very aware of the placement of his hands during the whole ordeal – and backed away from her. Much to his surprise, she didn't move other than to allow her tail to dip into the water. His smile returned once more, and so did the hope that he had been trying to suppress in his chest. "You know, you should really stop getting into these messes because you won't always have me around to get you out."

Nixie turned to face him and her eyes narrowed at him. She slipped into the dark, blue water quickly, though Cam could have sworn that he her say, "I didn't need your help" in her stubborn little way. He smiled at her tail as he watched it disappear into the depths. Looking back up at the deck beside the Ocean Café, he saw Sirena and Lyla dashing out and immediately catching his eye. They glared at him angrily as if it were all his fault, but he merely shrugged at them and smiled. They knew where Nixie had gone.

Cam slowly made his way back onto the cement and started heading home. His leftover food was forgotten as he thought about how he saved Nixie for the second time. His chest felt empty again, though he couldn't say why. Just before the ocean disappeared over the horizon, Cam allowed himself one look back, almost as if he hoped to see Nixie waving him off. But that's not what he knew would have happened. It's just…what he hoped would have happened.

* * *

**So! This is my first crack at this and I do plan on turning this into a multichapter fic! Please leave me feedback on what you think of this so far so I can further expand my story! I absolutely love this pairing and already finished the second set of episodes on Netflix ): **

**Thanks (:**


	2. The Blue Shed

**AN: **I just want to apologize for me taking so long to post this! I've had this written for a couple of days now, but I got a bit busy with school and work, but I'm here to post this for you now! I love all of the feedback that I've been getting and I really, really appreciate all of it! What do you guys think of Zac and Lyla? I ship it (;

* * *

"I bet Cam did this on purpose," Lyla nearly shouted as she walked in circles around Zac's coffee table, her fingers twisting this way and that way, as if they were mirroring Lyla's ability to make such simple things so much more complex than they actually were. "I bet he's trying to expose us because he's…because he's jealous! Because he's angry that he can't be one of us!"

"I'm not so sure about that, Lyla," Zac replied. His tan face mirrored his thoughts as his lips thinned into a straight line. He was trying to think. "I've known Cam all my life and even if he was jealous or angry, I don't think he would have tried to expose us."

"He tried to become one of us!" Lyla's temper was getting the best of her today. Even the weather seemed to know how the mermaid felt. "Now that he's failed at that, all he has left to do is expose us!"

Zac only shook his head and Nixie and Sirena – the two always seemed to fade into the background whenever Zac and Lyla were together – merely looked at each other, unsure of what to believe.

"Well, I mean, did you ever think that Cam would try something like becoming a merman like you?" asked Sirena meekly. Sirena had always been a bit quieter than the other two, but today it was almost as if Nixie wasn't there at all. Sirena tossed her innocent look at Zac and he sighed deeply, unsure of what to say, really.

"I think that I'm going to go for a walk," he replied, getting up from the couch where he had been sitting, which caused Nixie to drop Zac's toy action figure, startled by his irrational idea.

"Are you out of your mind?" she asked, her brows rose in surprise. Although Nixie had been relatively quiet throughout Lyla and Zac's little spout, there was almost nothing she cared more about than keeping her secret – _their _secret – from the knowledge of the public. She narrowed her eyes at him, almost accusatory. "And risk exposure?"

"It'll only be for a second," said Zac meekly as he combed his fingers through his hair. They all stared at each other for a moment before Zac grabbed his jacket and dashed through the door. Lyla, Sirena, and Nixie knew all too well how it felt to lose someone that they were once all so close to. It was difficult to come to grips with, and it was something that nobody ever wanted to deal with.

"He's been through a lot," whispered Lyla. Her voice had gone soft and her eyes trailed after him as the door shut behind him. For once, Lyla sounded tired and defeated.

"Zac's a friend now, Lyla, but if he exposes himself, he's exposing us, and there's nothing that we'll be able to do to fix any errors that he makes," Nixie breathed in disbelief. She felt Zac's pain, but she did not want to deal with his stupidity as well. Sirena glanced uncertainly between her two best friends and almost grimaced. They always fought and it always hurt her to see them both on the opposite side of the spectrum all of the time.

"You know, it's funny that you're the one talking about _Zac_ risking exposure when there was someone else _in this room_ that almost blew it for all of us!" Lyla heaved, her bright eyes darkening as she cast Nixie a look.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Nixie was taken aback by Lyla being so accusatory.

"Guys, please, just settle down. It's not worth fighting now! It's all in the past!" Sirena pleaded, her pale eyes becoming glassy and her face contorting with worry.

"How can I settle down when every two seconds Nixie's trying to make me believe that we shouldn't trust Zac when Nixie was the one who almost exposed all of us with her rash decision to let Cam have the trident after _Zac_ put it back?" Lyla was furious and it was like nothing Nixie had ever seen before. The air was so thick one could have cut it with a knife if they tried.

"I thought it would be the best dec—"

"You weren't even _thinking_, Nixie!" Lyla laughed. She could not believe that Nixie would be so _thick_.

Normally, Nixie would have been the most rational of the three mermaids. She would have come up with all of the clever plans and come and save the day like she always did — or liked to think that she did — and _normally_ she would have had a witty comeback with plenty of sass to knock Lyla off her haughty pedestal, but so far, today hadn't been normal. Not in the least.

"I'm leaving."

Nixie did not bother to angle her body as to avoid collision with Lyla's bony shoulder as she made her way out of Zac's place. Despite having called Zac out for wanting to leave before, Nixie could not have bared to stay another minute with Lyla trying to pin everything on her. It could not have been her fault. Nixie was feeling bitter and resentful and unforgiving. She decided that she would not be the one that would apologize first. She was hurt and wasn't she already hurt enough?

The sky was darkening and the clouds were beginning to cover the sky. A storm was coming and there would be no way to escape it. Ms. Santos said that it would not have even been safe for a mermaid — or mer_man_ — to try to swim in it, unless they were tucked safely away in their moon pool or so deep in the ocean that their magic could protect them, but the three of them had not been strong enough for that yet. Nixie no longer knew where she was going. She just knew that she had to keep on walking far away from Lyla and her judgmental stare.

* * *

The bouncing of a small tennis ball against a solid, hollow wall and a firm, wooden floor could be heard as one entered the home room of a boy who made a lot of mistakes — more than was normal, he was sure.

"You know what's weird, Arty?" breathed Cam, speaking to his ever-playful boxer puppy as he tossed the tennis ball against the walls of his room. Cam glanced at his dog and frowned. "Sometimes I think that I should really think some of these things through."

His parents had been grateful that Cam brought home dinner for them, though his mother insisted that he sit down with the rest of the family and eat her tomato soup, which was kind of her ritual to ward away sickness whenever a big storm was coming. Cam usually got a cold anyway. But there he sat at the mahogany table with a half-smile, half-smirk played on his lips, despite how forced they might have appeared. He wasn't feeling up to spending dinner with his family, but he quickly made an excuse to leave the table to get back to his room and throw his tennis balls and talk to his dog, despite him not understanding a word he said.

"I feel guilty for it," said Cam as he laid against his navy blue and white pillows. He rested the back of his head on his arm and leaned shut his eyes. The rain was beginning to pelt against the glass panes of his window and all he could think of was the girl he used, manipulated, and let down. "I don't want to tell them that I'm wrong because that makes me look weak, but it also makes me look like I know what I did wrong. I just…it's all still pretty awkward, if you ask me."

Cam shook his head, clearly flustered, before sighing heavily at being unable to make a decision. He let his thoughts wander — he probably should not have let that happen — and a girl with beautiful dark locks and plump pink lips came to mind. It was not what he should have been thinking about and he quickly tried to change his thoughts. He turned to face his boxer.

"She's still pretty, Arty."

"Cam!" his mother shouted from the next room.

"Yeah, mom?" Cam replied unenthusiastically.

"Go get some broth from the shed!"

Cam sighed, but reluctantly complied. The rain was falling harder now, so he yanked his clear, plastic umbrella from his closet and made his way down the stairs and towards the family shed.

* * *

"Oh _no_."

Nixie's eyes were wide with horror and disbelief at her stupidity. She wandered far from Zac's place and she had no idea where she was or which road she took to get there. Nixie had been far too focused on the fight she had with Lyla and wondering if Sirena had taken her side and where Zac had been and why Cam used those tactics to get her to walk right into his hands like some sort of stupid _land girl_.

And what was worse?

It was beginning to rain. Nixie saw the first drop fall onto her jacket and quickly dashed into a small, blue shed that was beside the trashcans of someone's home in a nice little suburban neighborhood. Hopefully nobody would see her as she forced open the door and entered the dimly lit space.

"It's better than nothing, I suppose," Nixie said to herself and she made herself comfortable on a soft bag of soil and allowed cradled her arms. It was beginning to get cold and Nixie had no idea how long it would be. She looked around and saw plenty of gardening tools. Had Ms. Santos not told her about her hobby of gardening, Nixie would have thought this as the shed of murder weapons. It still could have been. However, Nixie also spotted cans of food that could be edible, though she had no idea how she would open a can.

The storm was beginning to drop rain like little bombs and Nixie was careful not to get wet and she forced the doorway shut and backed away from anywhere where a drop of water might get through. Nixie went so far as to pull the plastic tarp over her head in case she was going to get wet. She allowed her head to fall against the wooden panels of the walls, but quickly became panicked as she heard footsteps approaching.

_Maybe they aren't coming towards me_, she thought. _Maybe they're not coming to the shed. Stay still just in case._

But the doors of the shed were thrust open as thunder boomed all around and Nixie jumped, nearly causing the plastic tarp to fly off of her. She heard footsteps approaching and grabbing cans from the wall that she just perched her head upon. The stranger was so close to her because the shed was small and Nixie could feel her heart beating in her chest. The person did not seem to notice her hiding under the tarp, most likely because of the dim light. They walked away and she heard the doors of the shed closing softly. She breathed a sigh of relief, but it was not long before the tarp was torn off of her and she met a pair of blue eyes and tanned, white skin.

"Were you reading my mind?" he asked.

It was Cam.

* * *

**K. So. It will be better soon, I promise! This was more of a filler for later! I'm pretty sure that there's going to be a season two of Mako Mermaids from the research me and countless others have already done! Please leave me some feedback on my work!**

**TELL ME: **

**What's the pairing you're looking forward to most in the Netflix series?**


End file.
